How businesses are maximising effective use of catalogues and brochures

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Author: Lyndon Thomas

In a busy marketplace, businesses both large and small are finding that effective use of media can give them an important edge over competitors.

Whilst virtually all businesses now have an active and professional-looking website, many are still continuing to go down the route of physical media production such as brochure and catalogue printing. There are very good reasons for this.

Firstly, it is much easier to reach prospective customers using physical media; a door drop or even a leaflet inserted into a newspaper will contain much more information and have a longer-lasting impact than, say, a pop-up advertisement on a web page.

Secondly, catalogue and brochure printers are able to produce a dazzling array of physical media that will inspire public faith in the financial standing and reliability of a business, and encourage more customers to come forward.

Thirdly, for those in the mail order business, a catalogue provides a welcome opportunity for the buyer to browse in comfort away from the glare of a computer screen.

Fortunately, technologies enabling quality brochure and catalogue printing are now so much easier to access.

Advances in desktop publishing, for example, mean that any business can now easily generate quality print-ready artwork in the form of high resolution digital PDFs: secure files containing perfectly aligned colour and text information that greatly minimise the risk of printing and reproduction errors.

At the print end, greater availability of production techniques has resulted in even relatively small print centres now being able to offer top quality printing facilities in addition to laser reproduction. Litho off-set printing, for example, which was once restricted to prestigious magazine titles, and works by quickly and flawlessly transferring images from printing plate to paper via a special rubber 'blanket', is now frequently used to produce multiple copies of business catalogues and brochures that are highly consistent and uniform in quality.

These impressive results can be enhanced even further through the use of high-grade, richly fibred papers that not only feel luxurious, but also permit a richer ink density on the page.

Finally, there are key production techniques that can be used to prolong the life of a brochure or catalogue in order to maintain its attractiveness after being handled on multiple occasions.

Coating the cover in a UV varnish, for example, will not only make for a highly glossy product but also increase its resilience.

Collating the pages together using various forms of secure binding will also greatly help in this respect. Popular binding techniques include: saddle stitching (professional magazine stapling), perfect binding (spine-gluing of multiple pages, a technique common to many booklets and coffee table titles) and the more work-like but equally effective comb binding (whereby the spine is gripped by a wire spiral).

An interesting point is that there are now many more print centres available locally to any business, thereby greatly widening the opportunities for quality print production, as well as conferring additional practical benefits such as being able to inspect and collect the finished product in person rather than relying on a delivery company.

The author has worked in the print industry for brochure printers and catalogue printing over 30 years. Lyndon spent much of that time working in Australia, before returning to the UK several years ago where he worked as a print manager for a UK design agency. Lyndon writes for Minuteman Press UK; a printing franchise organisation that can help with all printing requirements, no matter how large or small.